Postdoctoral Fellowship: PRFB: Edges in Ecotones: Differentiating processes at the leading and lagging edges of the marsh-forest ecotone

Jobe, Justus G D, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2024, Broadening Participation of Groups Underrepresented in Biology. The Fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. Climate change has had a pronounced impact on vegetative communities globally, causing plant communities to shift in response. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the transitional zones between two distinct ecological systems (ecotones). The coastal marsh-forest ecotone is being strongly influenced by sea-level rise, which has caused forests to retreat and marshes to migrate landward, although these two processes do not always occur in sync. This research will reveal how vegetation is changing, and what factors are causing vegetation shifts to occur. Understanding more about these processes is important because forest retreat and marsh migration may be essential for coastal wetland persistence, which is vital for ecosystem health and to maintain this culturally significant habitat for Indigenous tribes. The fellow will broaden participation of groups underrepresented in biology, particularly aspiring indigenous scientists, with educational outreach activities to local Indigenous tribes in the Chesapeake region and through graduate mentoring and workshops designed for early career indigenous scientists. This research aims to establish a new paradigm for understanding large-scale vegetation shifts through studying dynamics within ecotones for insight into the climate drivers of the adjacent ecosystems. By characterizing an ecotone as two discrete boundaries, this framework will allow the description of abiotic drivers that influence the leading and lagging edges of an ecotone independently, with major implications for ecotone expanse and species turnover. The fellow will employ remote sensing techniques to track migration rates of the leading and lagging edges of marsh-forest ecotones throughout the Chesapeake Bay. Furthermore, the fellow will use vegetative monitoring to explore how plant communities respond to various rates of migration, and mesocosm experiments to identify drivers in inducing the vegetative shifts that occur in coastal transgression. The fellow will receive mentoring in remote sensing techniques and advisory services to local and regional stakeholders through the sponsoring scientist. The fellow will broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in biology through field trips with young tribal members of local Indigenous tribes of Virginia, mentoring indigenous undergraduate and graduate students, and developing networking opportunities for indigenous researchers at the annual Ecological Society of America conference. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.